Cloning Alienrespawn 2.0 to USB, preserving to an SSD upgrade.

I'm working on my friends M17x R1. He bought it used an inoperative, and I fixed the hardware side of things. Now, I'm performing a few upgrades from here. First is an SSD. I want to preserve everything from factory, as if it was a brand new factory install (from Alienrespawn 2.0).

How do I go about migrating the AlienRespawn partition to a new hard drive, and then installing the os onto said hard drive? I thought I could create recovery media, but there is no such option in the older AlienRespawn. The only thing I can access in the AlienRespawn settings in windows is a password option. Would I be able to simply clone the partition to a new hard drive, then install? If so, any recommendations on cloning software that is freeware?

Thanks all!

 

Best bet would probably be to do just a clean windows install onto the new SSD. I've seen and heard of Cloning Hard Drives going wrong and this is always a bigger headache in the end. Here are some guides to make sure it all goes smooth if you choose to go that route.

HOW TO: Clean Windows 7 Install (Driver Install Order) Guide for Alienware Systems

HOW TO: Restore the Alienware 'Look and Feel' after a clean install of Windows 7

 

I was hoping to avoid this since I don't have the Windows 7 Pro disk. Not to mention the internet in my apartment can be pretty slow. Thanks for the tip though... Maybe it would be better to only clone the Respawn partition to the SSD, then perform a respawn.

I suppose I could use gparted to find the partitions parameters then use a cloning program.

Any insight on this?

Edit: Did some research, looks like a live CD of g4u should take care of the cloning procedure. Ill likely clone the entire drive, then factory respawn, then update drivers. Also just realized the bios is A04, needs a jump to A07.

Wish the Respawn software would just let me pick what drive I was respawning too!

 

The full version can, you sure you can't access the new software ?

 

I think the Respawn on the old R1 is different than the R4s. I tried to install the new program and it wasn't compatible. Just gonna pick up a CD and burn it with g4u and go from there I suppose. Thanks for the input guys!

 

I would also recommend the clean install when moving from an HDD to an SSD, some features on the O.S change.